In honour of “Live History” programming featured in the museum last week, Trail Blazers is looking back to the late 19th century and one instrumental figure in the development of the city as we know it.
“Colonel” Eugene Sayre Topping was dealt a stroke of luck in the summer of 1890 when two prospectors visited his mining recording office in Nelson.
“The two sought to stake five claims uphill and across the valley from the head of Trail Creek,” explains archivist Sarah Benson-Lord.
The problem? Legislation at the time only permitted two claims each.
“Ever the opportunist, Topping paid the recording fees for all five claims in return for the fifth claim,” Benson-Lord continues. “That fifth claim, which he would name the LeRoi, would propel Topping and the area we now know as Trail into a profitable and prosperous future.”
Forging a partnership with fellow Nelsonite, Frank Hanna, the two pre-empted 343 acres of flat land in what is now downtown Trail and smelter bench.
Hanna, with his wife Mary Jane, moved his growing family to Trail that year and the men began developing their townsite.
“With a boom in mining in Rossland, Trail’s significance along the river grew as a port of call for incoming fortune seekers and an outgoing depot for raw ore,” Benson-Lord notes. “The buzz caught the attention of American mining promoter, Fritz Heinze, who negotiated with Topping a land sale, financial interest in the townsite, and a contract for LeRoi ore.”
Heinze’s first copper furnace was up and running in spring 1896, followed swiftly by a narrow gauge tramway that ran from the shoreline to the smelter, then up to Rossland.
In 1901, the townsite incorporated as a city with Topping acclaimed the first City of Trail mayor.
After several major infrastructure projects, a partnership dissolution, and marriage, Topping left Trail for Victoria in 1906 with his new wife, Mary Jane, who was his longtime landlady and dear friend. Furthermore, she is the Mary Jane who first came to Trail married to Topping’s business partner, Frank Hanna.
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